The ADATA Ultimate SU800 SSD Review (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
by Billy Tallis on February 1, 2017 12:01 PM ESTATTO
ATTO's Disk Benchmark is a quick and easy freeware tool to measure drive performance across various transfer sizes.
The inferior write speed of the smallest SU800 is quite clear from the ATTO plots, but there are no other major issues revealed by this test.
AS-SSD
AS-SSD is another quick and free benchmark tool. It uses incompressible data for all of its tests, making it an easy way to keep an eye on which drives are relying on transparent data compression. The short duration of the test makes it a decent indicator of peak drive performance.
All three capacities of the SU800 deliver great sequential read speeds. The low write speed of the 128GB SU800 stands out even on this short test, but the larger capacities are only slightly behind their competition.
Idle Power Consumption
Since the ATSB tests based on real-world usage cut idle times short to 25ms, their power consumption scores paint an inaccurate picture of the relative suitability of drives for mobile use. During real-world client use, a solid state drive will spend far more time idle than actively processing commands. Our testbed doesn't support the deepest DevSlp power saving mode that SATA drives can implement, but we can measure the power usage in the intermediate slumber state where both the host and device ends of the SATA link enter a low-power state and the drive is free to engage its internal power savings measures.
We also report the drive's idle power consumption while the SATA link is active and not in any power saving state. Drives are required to be able to wake from the slumber state in under 10 milliseconds, but that still leaves plenty of room for them to add latency to a burst of I/O. Because of this, many desktops default to either not using SATA Aggressive Link Power Management (ALPM) at all or to only enable it partially without making use of the device-initiated power management (DIPM) capability. Additionally, SATA Hot-Swap is incompatible with the use of DIPM, so our SSD testbed usually has DIPM turned off during performance testing.
The ADATA SU800 achieves respectably low idle power when link power management is used. The active idle power consumption is a problem for all of the drives with Silicon Motion controllers, and worst for the SU800.
35 Comments
View All Comments
SaolDan - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
Neat!!!MrSpadge - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
Overall a worse deal than the MX300, which itself took quite some criticism. Could you elaborate on what's "neat" about this?vladx - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
Price is low for decent performance. This is SATA SSD targeted towards low end and mainstream market.Great_Scott - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
The MX300 is better value given the drive sizes. I'm still trying to find a replacement for the Mushkin Reactor for desktops, but the Crucial drive is my go-to for laptops currently.Arbie - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
Why do you guys continually fail to mention the Mushkin Reactor 1TB MLC drive ($240 at Newegg) in your SSD comparisons? It's cheaper, faster, and probably has greater endurance.You reviewed it two years ago but have hardly mentioned it since then. It seems to be a "best buy" still.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8949/mushkin-reactor...
But... kudos on the clickbait. You have at least as much as any other site, and of the lowest degree.
vladx - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
Because Mushkin already refreshed their SSD line and the old Reactor is not manufactured anymore which means it will be gone any week now.Great_Scott - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
And we will all be sad to see it go. I have a bunch of those drives, myself.Flunk - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
They don't often put 2 year old drives in comparisons.Great_Scott - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
That's too bad, as some context would be useful, especially considering that many people own that drive, and until recently it was still being made.Then again, a two-year-old budget drive with a very similar controller would have made the SU800 series look terrible, and we can't have that.
eek2121 - Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - link
The Mushkin Reactor is a drastically slower drive, costs about the same, and will soon disappear from retailers. It is not a competitor.